With an unintentional nod toward Monty Python, retired CFL linebacker Shea Emry is rediscovering his family tree (he can trace his lineage to a long line of lumberjacks, going back to his great-great-grandfather) and revelling in the atavistic pleasure of swinging a twin-bladed axe.

“When you’re swinging an axe, as hard as you can, into a block of nice, soft wood, you’re getting rid of anger and aggression and channelling negative emotions and energies out of your body, as opposed to going to a pub, getting in a fight and doing it that way,” Emry says.

“It’s the same sort of energy for me. It feels good — and it doesn’t hurt anyone else. It allows me to ventilate myself.”

The city, society and the sports landscape have changed immensely in the decades since Vancouver moved from milltown to high-tech metropolis. But, in some respects, Emry is reaching

back to where we began, honouring the red cedar forests and the lumbering industry that brought the first European settlers to the northwest coast.

On Jan. 30, a few days before he announced his official retirement from football following multiple concussions, Emry took part in the first international logger sports competition at the University of B.C.

Timbersports teams from the universities of Idaho and Montana matched blades of steel against the Thunderjacks, as UBC’s team is known, in a sport virtually unknown on campus. Emery, 29, was eligible to compete because he is completing his degree after eight seasons in the CFL.

He’s also a control subject in a study by the Watson Centre for Brain Health at UBC, which is looking into the impact of cognitive rehabilitation for individuals with traumatic brain injuries.

“The majority of men in our family have worked in the timber or forestry industry,” Emry says. “When I delved into the family photo albums, I saw a picture of my great-great-grandfather — huge moustache, standing next to an ancient tree he was felling. It made me feel like I’m home.”

The logging sports facility at UBC is just a long hatchet throw east of Thunderbird Stadium, where Emry played and trained with the T-Birds after three seasons of NCAA football with Eastern Washington.

He played quarterback at Vancouver College before being converted to linebacker in college. The Montreal Alouettes later made him a first-round pick in the 2008 CFL draft.

Despite its proximity to UBC’s football field, the logging sports compound was ignored when Emry played in the CIS. Now, he frequents it in his “Canadian tuxedo” — ball cap, work boots, blue jeans and flannel jacket.

He and business partner Ben Leffler operate Axe Thrown, a mobile axe throwing league targeted at corporate, birthday, bar mitzvah or bachelor/bachelorette parties and events.

That’s in addition to his main project — Wellmen — an adventure club that seeks to get males outside, away from their cellphones and computers, to bond over activities from campfire cooking to snowshoeing and paddle boarding to meditation and yoga on the beach.

“There are a lot of opportunities and services for women to come together,” Emry says.

“There’s not a whole lot of things for men to do, where they can just be men. We want guys to feel comfortable just being themselves.”

The idea of Wellmen was conjured up in 2011, when Emry was sitting out with one of his numerous concussions. The same year, while Emry was battling his own demons, San Diego Chargers linebacking great Junior Seau — one of Emry’s idols growing up — and NHL players Wade Belak, Rick Rypien and Derek Boogaard, all with similar combative, tough-guy backgrounds, took their lives. The connection between the violent forces in modern sports, depression, chronic brain disease and tragic endgame stories disturbed and frightened Emry.

“My wife asked me, ‘What are you passionate about?’ ” Emry says.

“I literally couldn’t come up with anything other than football. It scared the crap out of me. I think that concussion (2011) forced me to figure out who I was off the football field and what makes me free and happy.

“Nature. Being outdoors. Helping people. Intuitively, I smashed it all together and came up with Wellmen.”

Emry’s decision to retire was made for him last June, months after he launched the Wellmen Project, when he was concussed in his first game as a Saskatchewan Roughrider. He never played again.

His decision to move on was made official last month, two months following a similar course taken by his former high school rival at St. Thomas More Collegiate, Jon Cornish, who also has an alarming concussion history.

Two years older than Emry, Cornish was another breakthrough example of a Canadian excelling at a key position — running back — normally manned by an import, just as Emry had done as an impact middle linebacker with the Alouettes, Argonauts and Roughriders.

Cornish is pursuing a career as a chartered financial analyst in Calgary. Emry, meanwhile, has an axe to grind — and toss.

“Vancouver was built on the handles of an axe — by the Chinese railroad workers, the indigenous population with their totems and wood carvings, and the loggers that came after,” he says. “What were those guys wearing? Plaid. I guess I’m a lumber sexual man now.”

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